The construction industry has traditionally been slow to adopt digital transformation and emerging technologies. According to his 2016 report for McKinsey, construction was his second least digitized industry after agriculture and hunting. Most recently, his 2023 report for Deloitte highlighted the slow adoption of AI and machine learning in construction and engineering companies in Australia, Japan and Singapore. Only 26% use these technologies and only 35% plan to use them in the future.
Australian and New Zealand construction industry leader John Holland is challenging these norms. Over the past six years, the company has increased its focus on technology and digital transformation. A key pillar of the digital transformation strategy launched in 2021 are rapidly emerging capabilities such as AI, digital twins, and the Internet of Things.
said Bastian Uber, Chief Digital Information Officer at John Holland. “We are always looking at new technologies to see if we can get value from them.”
From machine learning to advanced AI assistants
John Holland’s AI journey began in 2021, using machine learning and optical character recognition to process invoices. This early adoption significantly increased productivity and encouraged further exploration of AI’s potential.
In 2023, the company collaborated with Microsoft to build ChatGPT, a private version of OpenAI’s chatbot. This allows employees to leverage the potential of generative AI while keeping their data secure.
“The genie of generative AI is out of the bottle and we can see the benefits for John Holland,” says Uber. “We quickly realized that if we didn’t provide organizations with a safe and secure solution, they were at risk of having their data shared in public-facing generative AI applications.”
The company’s private ChatGPT solution is open to all employees and has over 200 unique users handling over 1,000 queries each day. This is clear evidence that employees are actively adopting generative AI. Increase employee productivity by helping them quickly create and summarize content. It will also enable companies working on joint venture projects with other companies to safely and reliably use generative AI capabilities.
The potential of this technology culminated in John Holland joining the Copilot for Microsoft 365 Early Access Program (EAP) in September 2023.
